FORMER steelworker Martin Bowen and wife Marie have celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in style.

The couple who live in Linthorpe met at All Saints Church youth club.

They were married in All Saints Church, Linthorpe Road, by Father Barker, on January 6, 1951.

Martin, 84, was born in Poplar Street, behind the Central Library, in November 1926 and Marie, nee Yule, now aged 77, was born in Pearl Street, Middlesbrough in September 1933.

Martin said: “It was a simple wedding, followed by tea and sandwiches at my mother’s house.

“We then went to the pictures at the then Elite cinema on the corner of Borough Road and Linthorpe Road, now the Crown.”

After three years renting rooms in an aunt’s house and spending their summers in a chalet in Mays Field, Great Ayton - now the Whinstones - they acquired their own house in the then-new estate of Park End, which was then reached by a country lane.

This is where they brought up their family and spent many happy years.

Martin worked in the steelworks for 37 years before being made redundant and, after a period as a night porter, he enjoyed his final working years as a messenger for the Herald and Post before retiring in 1992.

Marie had several part time jobs while her children were small and then worked many years in Baum’s a well-known department store on Newport Road.

When that was demolished due to the town’s redevelopment, she went on to work in the Turkish Baths in Gilkes Street and then the Town Hall box office.

The couple have three married children - David, 59, Lynne, 58 and Anne, 56. They have five grandchildren - Sarah, 26, Nicola, 24, Michael 23, Alex, 21 and Rebecca, 17.

They are also “adopted” grandparents for their great-nephew and niece, Stephen and Helen Davis, who are now in their thirties.

Marie said of 60 years’ marriage: “There are highs and lows in any marriage, but we’ve always been happy.”